


Do You Wanna Talk About It?

by Enigmatree



Category: Bleach
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Isshin's A+ Parenting, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, Winter War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigmatree/pseuds/Enigmatree
Summary: When Ichigo goes back to Karakura, powerless and apparently now friendless, he has changed. He has gone through war and hell and come back. He now has the monsters in his mind to show for it. And it's not easy.But the thing is, it's just as not-easy to be Kurosaki Ichigo's comrade through war, battle and all the horrors they lived through only for him to slip through their fingers. Uryuu, Orihime and Chad do try to keep away for his own good. They just can't seem to. So they come back, this time with more problems than answers.But that's what friends are for; to help each other through their traumas. Right? Right.





	Do You Wanna Talk About It?

**Author's Note:**

> So okay, I wrote this after midnight so no complaints about small details like grammar and coherency and in characterness. Also, I wish this happened.
> 
> WARNINGS; PTSD, mentions of Stockholm Syndrome, panic attacks, trauma and hallucination.
> 
> Edit: The repeating last part has been erased. Thanks to Donni for noticing. ^_^

 

Some nights, Ichigo has good dreams. Kind dreams, the ones that make him look out of the window as the sun rises and reminiscence. Dreams of warmth in him and voices in his head. Dreams of feeling complete, feeling the support in his soul even when there’s silence.

He always wakes up. That’s his sacrifice.

And some nights… some nights, most of the nights, Ichigo has nightmares. They are more varied. He sees himself crawling under heavy, twisted Reiatsu. He sees his friends crawling under _his_ dark twisted Reiatsu. He sees white sands, white walls and the black black sky under which he kills his friend. He sees blood, mostly.

He always wakes up before dawn, those nights. He spends the rest of the time wondering whether the sun _will_ rise. The endless night is a proved reality, now.

It does rise.

But it’s not the magic-all-cure he imagines it will be when it’s dark and silent and the walls are closing around him. There _is_ no magic-all-cure for habits and memories.

Still, during the day, it’s better. The bitter knowledge that nothing can take over him even though he has absolutely no control over his emotions, because there _is_ nothing who can try to take over him anymore is more obvious. The fear of harming his friends recedes under the sun, because it’s all too obvious when he walks by the empty _empty_ graveyard that he has no power over them.

When the sun is up, it’s usually the sour, weary feeling that occupies him instead of the fear. No, that’s not exactly true. During the day, it’s usually the emptiness he struggles with.

Because he has no purpose. He has no reason to live for. He doesn’t even know what he is waking up for most mornings.

He thought it was for his friends but…

Sometimes, Ichigo wonders whether everyone has forgotten the existence of gigais. At his more cynical moments, he wonders whether everyone has forgotten the existence of one Kurosaki Ichigo when he stopped oozing Reiatsu.

Although he likes to think of himself as a powerful and resolute person, he eventually has to acknowledge that he no longer has any power. As for ‘resolute’…

A human only has so much resolution.

It’s the end of the second week when he first seriously contemplates suicide.

He knows what happens after one dies. He has friends who _are_ dead. (Or he thinks he has.) At worst, he would lose all his memories, but would that be so bad? All his loved ones seem to have lost their memories of him, why can’t he lose his memories of them?

In the end, it’s only two things that carry him safely to the third week after his sacrifice. The first thing is Yuzu, who never stops pestering him out of the room or into the house, and the second is the possibility that the loss of his soul was more permanent than he likes to guess. If he wakes up as a Plus soul, with still not a drop of Reiryoku, his mindscape still shattered and hauntingly empty… he doesn’t think he could survive that.

So, he has no choice but to try to move on. Alone.

 

* * *

 

 

Urahara-san asks her to not talk to Kurosaki-kun about the Spiritual World. He says that his father said Kurosaki-kun would be happier that way. He says that their friend deserves the chance to move on.

And Orihime _tries_ , she does.

She keeps quiet about the Hollow hunts they go on, she doesn’t congratulate him on his sister’s new part time job, she doesn’t ask him whether he also sees nightmares. She doesn’t ask if he also jumps up at noises or sees Ulquiorra haunting a random corner of the room.

But she needs to talk about these to _someone_. She will go mad otherwise.

Two weeks of making bland talk with Kurosaki-kun and managing not to burst out with taboo topics in his presence later, she goes to Tatsuki-chan to start consulting her. But bland talk means nothing to her anymore and Tatsuki-chan listens, but she doesn’t _understand_. Orihime gets stranded further and further away from Kurosaki-kun with all her avoidance and closer to madness with all the things she holds in.

It takes her a week to break.

She’s always been extra attuned to Kurosaki-kun’s presence. She felt her friend even when he was training far away under multitudes of barriers, even when she was isolated in a completely different dimension. But she can’t feel him anymore, not since he gave up all of his powers. It makes no difference, until it _really_ _really_ does.

Orihime is browsing through her fridge one day when her thoughts turn to Kurosaki-kun, as they inevitably always do. She idly grabs the cheese and notices that she hasn’t talked to her friend in five days. And she hasn’t even glimpsed him in three, since he skipped on Friday. Then it hits her.

She doesn’t know if he’s fine, or sick or still around in Karakura or if he’s even… if he’s even…

Dead

Her Reiatsu lashes around blindly, she can feel it, trying to stretch her senses and feel Kurosaki-kun’s normally searing-bright aura. Orihime knows, in some vague spiritual way, that if his friend was currently anywhere on this world or Seireitei or Hueco Mundo, she would feel him.

She doesn’t.

Her breaths are too shallow, as she struggles to take deep ones but keeps failing, and the cheese is suddenly on the floor. A moment of brief clarity and she notices that she’s also on the floor, in front of the still open fridge.

The last time she reached blindly for the warm and wrapping feeling of Kurosaki-kun’s Reiatsu and came empty was when he was cold on the puddle of his own blood, the hole in his chest showing his heart cut in half. Orihime searches again, and again, and again, but all she feels is the empty dead lack. Souten Kisshun is already activated, looking around for the reason they were called for, but she knows it’s useless because Kurosaki-kun is dead— _dead deaddead—_

There’s something that sounds oddly like a stifled sob coming from her. She wheezes for a breath at the first interval she finds and that gives her enough energy to drag herself up on shaky legs and rush out of the house into the streets that look blood red this time of the day.

The Kurosaki house is all too easy to find so Orihime is almost suddenly in front of the locked door. She can’t feel anything. _She can’t feel anything_. There’s no waves and waves of almost liquid warmth pouring out of the house— It’s all the cold wind and crisp air and the dead emptiness of Kurosaki-kun’s corpse.

“Koten Zanshun!” She forces out but it leaves her even more breathless, she grabs the doorframe of the front door she brought down to take a breath. They are getting shallower and shallower; it feels like there’s something wet and cottony stuck in her throat.

Something crashes in the background of the noise that is her panic, and Orihime jumps up by sheer force of habit. She glimpses Yuzu-chan standing pale with a shattered pot at her feet before the girl runs up the stairs shouting something incomprehensible.

Orihime stays curled up on the entrance just trying to breath and tries to ignore the images of a bloodstained white floor and a cramped dark cell and green eyes flaring in her mind. She doesn’t think she can get up if she wants to.

But then there’s someone grabbing her and carrying her up the stairs even as she trashes in the hold. He groans when an elbow hits him in his gut but doesn’t let go. She’s just about ready to Koten Zanshun the kidnapper when she hears; “Inoue! Inoue, calm down, I’m just taking you to my room. It’s me, Ichigo!”

… _Kurosaki-kun_.

She breaths out something that could either be a relieved sob or a _‘OhmygodI’msoglad’_ and Kurosaki-kun tightens his arms before entering a room and placing her on the bed. He stands from his crouch —he’s about to go away, _he’s about to go away_ — but Orihime grabs one of his sleeves in a steel hold.

“No!” She shouts. She still can’t feel anything and the only thing that proves he’s alive is his presence here and she doesn’t know what she will do if she doesn’t have that. “Please, I— I thought you were— I thought you were…!”

 _Dead_. But she can’t say that.

Kurosaki-kun sighs, but Orihime’s spent enough time with the teen to know it’s not a sigh of frustration. There’s only understanding in his eyes. Not compassion, not sympathy, but an empathy that comes from experience. Comes from having gone through the same things. She wonders how she thought her friend might be strong— no, _heartless_ enough to not feel the need to talk to someone the way she does.

She wonders how she though he might have someone else to talk to when _she_ didn’t.

“…Do you want to talk about it?” Kurosaki-kun asks, and he sounds resigned— resigned to isolation, resigned to being turned away. It breaks her heart.

Orihime takes a breath. It’s not calm, nor is it deep, but it’s the first satisfying breath she’s taken this night. And when she answers, she answers with a conviction most people wouldn’t expect from her.

But _Kurosaki-kun_ is not ‘most people’ and she doesn’t know how they forgot that.

“Yes… _Yes_ , please.”

 

* * *

 

 

Chad protects Ichigo. That’s the way of life. The natural order of things. Ichigo protects people and Chad protects Ichigo. That’s the way they have always solved the problems God threw at their feet.

“ _Please don’t talk to my son about the Afterlife anymore._ ”

This time however, the problem is that Ichigo can’t protect anything and Chad doesn’t know how to protect him.

“ _He deserves the chance to move on without his friends dragging him back to something he can’t handle anymore._ ”

He listens. Ichigo is troubled, Chad has no idea how to help and all the adults in his life are trying to keep them away. Out of their whole group he has the most trust in them. Abuelo has never led him astray, neither has Urahara-san and Kurosaki-sensei has a sense of heavy responsibility in the clinic. They seem to know better.

If Ichigo won’t tell him what he wants, Chad will rely on the next best source.

But Ichigo keeps slipping off, bruises under his eyes and jittery hands reaching behind for something that doesn’t exist, not anymore. And Chad doesn’t feel that much better either because he’s completely isolated; without Ichigo the group seems like strangers, so he keeps on fighting Hollows real or imaginary to lock his sadistic imagination away.

More than anything, he scares himself with the satisfaction he gets— not from protecting, but from crushing the monsters into paste and the irritating thugs into something close to it. Sometimes, the realization that he doesn’t know why he’s fighting comes right before he brings down his punch and he— he _doesn’t stop_. Stopping to let himself be beaten up no longer looks so appealing when he knows opponents that can do so even when he fights with all his might.

Chad senses his sanity falling apart at times. Those times are the only ones at which he allows himself to contemplate why the power he manifested was a pure attack type instead of one more like Inoue’s. Before, he would appease himself with the fact that diabolical attack or not, it was for protecting Ichigo. Now… he distracts himself with training. And hunting.

 _Ichigo doesn’t want to be dragged into my mad world_ , Chad thinks. And he keeps away. _Ichigo doesn’t want me_.

 

* * *

 

 

For Uryuu, things are simple. They have always been so.

 _PTSD_ , he labels himself easily. It’s the same for Inoue-san, and he uneasily suspects some form of Stockholm Syndrome. Sado has always been too dependent on Kurosaki and the trauma is prevalent in all of them. 

He wonders if they should maybe go to some therapist, but then he declares the question too ridiculous to contemplate. They would be thrown into the madhouse for reasons much too different from the PTSD. Therapists don’t acknowledge the existence of monsters _actually out to get them_ , after all.

He deals with it on his own, the way every one of them are doing.

But… He admits, reluctantly —when he wakes up choking on his scream with the taste of bile in his mouth, when he keeps brushing his newly acquired comrades off, when he rages violently at the needle just because can’t put the string through it—  that he’s not dealing with it very well.

There’s nothing to do about it. Uryuu knows it’s unhealthy, but he doesn’t feel like hanging out with anyone, academics seem so meaningless after all that and as for talking about it… He sometimes _does_ actually want to talk about it. He just wants to complain a little maybe, or to vent his annoyance. But he will never burden Inoue-san with his stories, Sado is too distant these days and Kurosaki is— _not an option_.

Kurosaki is a Shinigami. Was a Shinigami. Uryuu is a Quincy. That alone would be a reason, but there’s also the rivalry between them. Not to mention that Kurosaki wouldn’t even _want_ to listen to his stories. Why would he? He has much more horrifying ones than Uryuu.

Uryuu was always side-lined anyways. He was too weak to fight the really powerful enemies, like Kenpachi, then Aizen, Grimmjow, _Ulquiorra_.  He trained and trained _and trained_ but _it was never enough_.

Kurosaki worked to protect them all, and he succeeded somehow. While Uryuu, weak weak Uryuu, couldn’t even protect his one friend from an overgrown bat. He got stabbed in the gut for it, but maybe he should be grateful that they both survived.

He trains until his fingers bleed. He naps as many times as it takes to avoid actual sleep. He hides behind his aloofness and pride.

He tries to deal with it himself.

Unfortunately, few weeks after the Winter War ends —Ryuuken is as unnecessary as ever, keeping to himself is too frustrating and outsiders never understand— he is falling out of options. And, it shouldn’t matter but, Inoue-san once again seems to be close to Kurosaki. No, the girl isn’t once again close, she is closer than ever and she never ever, under no circumstance lets him out of her sight.

Uryuu thinks he understands, and Sado even looks maybe-jealous.

He gives in. Uryuu can’t seem to keep away from Kurosaki, the way Inoue-san couldn’t. But if it proved effective for the girl, he thinks he might gather the courage to try for himself as well.

He waits until lunch break, because their classmates are watching them too attentively after Kurosaki maimed someone with a ruler and Inoue-san threw Honshou-san out of the window for trying to forcibly feed her. Uryuu and Sado probably haven’t given themselves away yet, but their compulsive tracking of their now presenceless-comrade might be telling.

When most of the other students have gone away, with only a few stragglers, Uryuu approaches Kurosaki to inquire if he wants to meet up, maybe, hang out, _talk about the War_.

He touches his friend’s shoulder to get his attention. But as the ginger turns around, there’s something wild and vicious in his cold brown eyes. Uryuu jumps away as if he was burned. Kurosaki’s face is pasty white under the too bright orange mane and teeth go from one side of his face to the other. The mask is marred by dark red lines and the bone white horns are deadly sharp.

The monster that has taken over Kurosaki’s body stands up with a screech, crimson fur shadowing his hands under the school uniform. Uryuu wants nothing but to draw his bow and aim but he hasn’t gotten any better, he isn’t powerful enough, there’s a lead-heavy pressure dragging him to the floor even as it eats at his body.

Just like the last time, he can’t do anything but tremble in his place, a strangled “… _Kurosaki?_ ” escaping his mouth.

And then there is Inoue-san —bruised, tired, in the Espada dress, but _Inoue-san_ — approaching the monster but Uryuu can’t even talk, much less tell her to go away, stay away because he’s _such a goddamn coward,_ as she—

As she shoos the monster away? As the monster obeys?

Uryuu feels like he’s in the twilight-zone.

It’s only as Inoue-san leads him out of the stifling classroom and into the empty corridor that he starts to see the white dress fading back into the school uniform it is, that he notices the horns disappear and tuffs of fur go back to unmarred tan skin on the monster that’s still following them— though from a long distance.

“…It was an episode, wasn’t it?” Uryuu mutters, rather disgusted with himself.

Inoue-san stops in the shadows of a column, smiling at him. “It’s okay, Ishida-kun!” She assures cheerfully, despite the much more subdued empathy in her eyes, “I had one just yesterday! It was about fruit bats attacking us and stealing my apple!”

Uryuu chokes out a snort. Her blinding optimism isn’t so obvious these days, but it’s still a comfort he has forgotten about. She fidgets a little, eyes flickering to the right where Uryuu notices the mons—Kurosaki is waiting silently at the same distance he was following them.

“Would it be okay?” Inoue-san asks, somehow managing to convey that she won’t judge, no matter what. “If Kurosaki-kun comes here?”

He nods. Uryuu isn’t afraid of Kurosaki and he isn’t afraid of the monster. He’s just… nervous. Yes. Nervous.

A subtle ‘come-hither’ motion by Inoue-san later, Kurosaki approaches, shoulders tense and scowling even more than the usual. Uryuu can feel his still-not-calm nerves snapping again. _If he has a problem he should say so already_ —

“I’m sorry.” Kurosaki says. _Huh_.

Uryuu notices the ginger absently stretching a hand towards his arm and when he automatically flinches at it, something breaks in Kurosaki’s expression. That’s when Uryuu realizes; Kurosaki isn’t scowling at him, he’s scowling at _himself_.

The hand reaching at Uryuu is still hovering over his arm and he slowly notices the puppy-dog sadness in Kurosaki’s eyes. And the guilt, and the self-loathing. Honestly, he doesn’t know how he thought that the ginger had a problem with him.

“I’m sorry.” Kurosaki repeats, “I’m sorry. I’m so so _so_ sorry, Ishida. _I’m so sorry._ ”

Uryuu discreetly bites his lip, schools his face into something passable as annoyance and brushes the hovering arm away to the clear heartbreak of his friend, before smacking him over the head. Kurosaki rubs at the bruise but doesn’t complain.

“ _Don’t_ do that ever again.” Uryuu orders, because he thought to say ‘ _it’s okay_ ’ but…

But it’s _not_ okay. Uryuu was stabbed in the gut and, whatever kind of sadomasochistic relationship Kurosaki has with Kenpachi and even Grimmjow, that _is_ _not_ okay.

Kurosaki looks him in the eye and answers; “ _Never_.”

And that’s enough, Uryuu thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

Orihime grabs them both and drags them into a hug. And as they all stay in the warmth of this— _understanding_ , she wants to say, Orihime does notice Kurosaki-kun dropping his ‘ _I don't like hugs_ ’ stance and wrapping both her and Ishida-kun tight in his arms. He’s still shaken, she believes, having his friend step back from him in fear like that. But it’s all okay now and that’s all that matters.

Ishida-kun acts as if nothing happened, but she also does notice that he doesn’t try to slip away.

Orihime notices it all. But they don’t want her to so she just smiles brightly, squeezes them tighter and keeps quiet.

 

* * *

 

 

Chad watches his three closest friends get back together, watches as they stay near each other, building a wall of protection around themselves. He watches as they keep each other standing and outsiders away. He watches as he himself gets branded as an outsider. And he wonders at what he did wrong.

The thugs and bullies in Karakura gain a healthy respect for Mexicans that week.

In the end, it’s Ishida that drags him back in their fold. It’s almost the fourth week after Ichigo lost his powers and Chad is feeling more lost than ever. Unlike the other two, he was there with Ichigo from the very beginning. Now that he _can’t_ be there, he’s just drifting around aimlessly. He doesn’t care for school, not after he experienced things much more serious than geometry, not when he knows that this life is just a passing interval. He doesn’t have many hobbies either. Chad is truly left purposeless.

He isn’t supposed to like fighting but… that’s all there’s left.

And it’s right when Chad is reminding some random high-schooler thugs just why it’s not a good idea to plan sneaks attack on the ‘orange haired upstart at Karakura’ in his presence, that Ichigo and his two friends walk by the alley entrance.

There’s an awkward moment of freezing; Ichigo cuts off in the middle of his sentence and Chad stops with a hand slamming the thug onto the wall. Then Ichigo closes his mouth, clenches his fists and keeps on walking, while Chad just lets the thug fall uselessly.

He stands there head bowed for a long time, until an aggravated sigh echoing in the alley makes him look up again. Ishida’s standing at the entrance alone, righting up his glasses before suddenly he drags Chad out into the streets and walks him right up to Ichigo.

“Solve your problems.” Ishida orders at the dumbfounded two before bringing out a book from somewhere to read as they do so.

“Oi, Ishida.” Ichigo grits out, “Look, we don’t _have_ a—”

“You clearly have one if Sado is turning to violence because you neglected him.” The Quincy states, turning a page. The ginger fumes, glares at Ishida and Ishida turns another page.

“Chad doesn’t want to be reminded of the war!” Ichigo tells him just the way Chad told his friend weeks ago. He hadn't known it would hurt more now than it did then. But it does, he realizes, and it will keep doing so until Chad puts an end to this stupid distance.

(He thinks about the solid friendship these three have rebuilt. He thinks about his place in their circle. Thinks about how _he will not be left behind_. Not again.)

“I thought—” He says, but that’s not true and Chad’s had enough of lying to Ichigo. “Kurosaki-sensei said that you didn’t want to be…”

“Yes,” Ishida nods with an annoyed look, “It seems quite a lot of us ‘thought’ so.”

“Urahara-san said that as well.” Inoue pipes in, giving Chad an understanding half hug.

Ishida looks uncertain for a second before resolving himself and adding; “I wonder how many of your other friends also ‘thought’ so, Kurosaki.”

Chad has spent long enough time with Ishida, with all three of them, to hear the _‘Not that I’m siding with Shinigami.’_ the Quincy swallows back, to see the anger lurking behind Inoue’s happy eyes, to anticipate the growl Ichigo breaths out.

“I’m going to _kick their asses_!” Ichigo snarls, as if that wasn’t already obvious. “You with me?”

“Of course, Kurosaki-kun.” Inoue beams.

“A chance to bring down Urahara Kisuke?” Ishida smirks, “Count me in.”

Ichigo looks Chad in the eye and the question doesn’t need to be voiced, neither does the weight behind it. “Anytime.”

That’s all it takes for Ichigo to turn around with a grin, walking to school with Chad at the most vulnerable position of his back. Inoue and Ishida also position themselves, chatter starting between them and comfortable silence between him and Ichigo.

 

* * *

 

 

Ichigo calls Ishida in three am when the silence in his head becomes too overbearing. He knows that Ishida called Inoue when Ryuuken scolded him for breaking half the furniture in a fit. Inoue told them all one morning that she calls Chad to just keep chatting about anything and everything for two hours until the shade of her captor left her room. Chad called Ichigo last morning after a particularly violent nightmare.

There’s something content even under the panic of the emptiness he feels when he knows that Ishida will open since it’s him calling. Even though he might be getting much treasured sleep.

“ _Kurosaki. Are you alright?_ ” Ishida demands the second Ichigo hears the quiet click. It warms his heart.

“It’s fine.” He assures, because things are fine even though he currently doesn’t feel okay. “It’s the silence.”

A sigh resounds in the phone line, before Ishida says; “ _Right. Stupid Shinigami problems. Well then, let’s have an all-night-long chat over your sudden lack of problems._ ”

Ichigo breaths out a shaky laugh as the banter settles over him like a familiar blanket. “Who would want to talk all night with you, stuck up Quincy?”


End file.
